Belated Halloween

Today Could Be Rough......

Facts-

~ Since Tuesday, Micah has been grumpy each day from noon to 4 or so and then off and on beside himself crying from 5 til whenever he falls asleep.

~Whatever is bothering him, it is making it difficult for him to sleep giving him a max nap time of 45 minutes and a max nighttime sleep of 3 hours.

~ Nate and I are not getting the sleep we had been growing accustomed to prior to Micah's downturn.

~ I have not been feeling well the past two days and have expended what little energy I do have walking Micah around the house in the hopes of placating him even if only briefly.

Results-

~ I am tired, I do not feel well, I am worried about poor little Micah, and I am trying to make it to the doctor today to get him checked out before the weekend....... I need a nap

We've Got More Bounce in California

So a few things took precedence, but you didn't think I was just going to skip over our Cali trip, did you? We had a really great time, I'm so glad we went!!! I'm typing one handed and Micah is losing it, so I'll make it short....

We went to Pasadena to hang out with Courtney and go to a museum.... Micah and Nate were thrilled :P

We went to Cars and Coffee in LA and saw everything from a Maserati, to a Model T, to vintage Corvettes and new Lamborghinis..... it's a rich area :) Basically, local car peeps bring out their new or restored things of beauty and us poor folks get to walk around and drool at them all... it's a lot of fun!

From Cars and Coffee, we drove to San Diego to visit the most famous zoo in the world. It was AMAZING. All of the animals were very playful while we were there and we saw polar bears play wrestling, hippos swimming and bouncing underwater, tiger cubs exploring and stalking/pouncing on each other, a monkey harassing an otter, arctic diving ducks (so cool), and rhinos playing in a water spray (to name just a few of the super animated animals we saw)

On Sunday we went to Laguna Beach and got rained on :P We left and the rain stopped when we were a little down the road, so we went to Newport Beach instead. It wasn't as pretty, but the size of it was beyond belief, my Dad said it was like being on the beaches of Normandy.... super deep beach :) We dipped Micah's feet in the ocean to give him a little Pacific experience.. it was fun! We spent that afternoon in Downtown Disney... a downtown-esque area outside of DisneyLand that is free and full of fun shops, diverse restaurants, and numerous people watching opportunities. My Dad has some of the pics from this day (my battery was dying) so when I get them, I'll put them up :)

Here is a pic of Micah chilling on the couch in Irvine on Monday morning. He was a champ on the plane... he was perfect on the way there and on the way back he only cried for 5 minutes during landing and taxiing. He was so distraught and then as soon as the plane was pulled into the gate and Nate stood up with him, he burst out laughing. I mean, hysterical, cracking up laughing.... everyone around us started cracking up too... all he wanted was to stand up :)

I am my mother's daughter

That's right..... I attract crazy people. Nate and I took Micah for a walk to our local polling place this morning and were pleasantly surprised to find only a 45-5o minute wait to vote. We took a gamble by going right when the polls opened, but it turned out ok for us. The only thing not ok was the lady in front of us.... OH MY GOSH. She would not stop talking.... loudly.... in a quiet gym..... mostly to us :P At one point, the guy in front of her said something to her to which she replied, "hey, every American's voice counts for something!" to which he replied "I'm not sure about that right now." Which was his version of "shut up, crazy lady".

People were staring at her the entire time as we found out that her son was an AP student and her Grandma lives in the hood in LA and that she is black, Irish and American Indian which leads to her always getting patted down at airports. She is from LA and doesn't vote straight ticket. Her son plays baseball and is going to the playoffs.... she nursed him. He wants to go to MIT. Her older son is 25. She thinks she might know who painted the mural in the gym. Her husband is in IT and so she "knows" that large blocks of votes will be lost by using non-paper ballots..... and so on and so forth.

Anyhoo, we voted and I'm glad it's over :)

Leaving on a jetplane....

We are taking off to California this afternoon and I'm not gonna lie... I'm nervous :P It should be really interesting to see how Micah handles the airplane experience. I am already preparing myself to not get really embarrassed if he breaks down while we are on the plane. I care way too much about what other people think and I just know that I will be mortified if he is making a lot of unhappy noises. Alas, he is 3.5 months old and there are some things you just can't control. So if you think of it today between 3 and 7, send up a little prayer for us that Micah will be comfortable and chill. I will be absent from blogging for awhile, but I should be back Tuesday at the latest :)

Film Strip

Micah was cold yesterday too :)

BRRRRRRRRR

Have I ever mentioned that I'm not built for cold weather? Well, I'm not built for cold weather :P

me = giant wussy

Tardiness

So...... contractor hitting the Cable line = later than normal post :P

It's ok though as I don't have much to say today :) I'll just go with this..... Micah rolled over this weekend!! Woo Hoo, my child is a prodigy!!! Seriously though, he went from belly to back twice and from back to belly once. I've considered bribing him with candy to get him to repeat his feat, however this approach leaves a little to be desired when you are dealing with a baby who is too young to either eat candy or even know what it is :P

Waking Up Happy

Wellllll... Micah hasn't slept through the night since San Antonio, but this week as brought a somewhat pleasant change in his sleeping habits from the pre-San Antonio routine. He is back to waking up in the middle of the night, but he then sleeps later than before. This means that I actually wake up before him the second time! The result of this is that every day this week when Micah has woken up the second time, I have been there before he has gotten fussy and I have been rewarded with HUGE smiles..... it's so great! I love greeting a smiling baby in the morning!

Is it over yet??

Ok, I'm tired of hearing political commercials. If I am to believe everything that they are saying, there are several races out there where both the candidates are unfit. Where they are both pro-national debt, and anti-puppy. I just can't vote for an anti-puppy candidate... I won't do it.

Forget the smear campaigns, now there is a real life investigation going on that accuses Harris County of purposefully stopping people from registering to vote. Unfortunately, this claim has merit. I have a friend running for office who told me awhile ago that Harris County spends 4 times the amount of money trying to disqualify voters than to register them. It came out yesterday that they have rejected a lot of people for phony reasons claiming they were too young (when they weren't) or they hadn't filled out the form correctly (when they did). Not only that, but they didn't notify them of the rejection until it was too late to re-register. The reason, or so it is believed, is that the people in charge are trying to stop young and minority voters, who are more likely to vote democratic, from voting. This is horrifying and really sad to me. Given, I vote Republican, but this just seems so incredibly un-democratic to stop an American from choosing their own "elected" officials. I just hope this claim has no merit and these rejections really were mistakes. :P

Christmas in October

Ok, so at my first MOPS meeting a month ago, one of the women at my table was talking about how she had just finished up her Christmas shopping. "What?!" I asked. She said something about how everyone thought it was weird, but she always tried to finish up way early. I assured her that she was not weird to me and that I too am an early Christmas shopper and that I was impressed and not horrified by her confession. Anyhoo, since that day I have felt behind. I mean, I usually try to finish my shopping before Thanksgiving and I call it good, but here was Devon who was done in September and I have to say... it panicked me a little.

Well, all you need is a catalyst, right? I am now 50% ish done with my shopping! I have my Dad, brother, and Elena taken care of, Nate and Micah are done except a few more stocking items, and Nate's Mom and one of his sisters are taken care of..... it's no September, but it's not too shabby either! I've got my mom, sister in law, Evan, father in law and Nate's other sister left to go...... I've had ideas for my mom, but I can never afford them (stupid one income budget!), and I think I know what we are going to get Amy but I'm not positive yet. Oooooo, I can't WAIT for Christmas! I love the decorations, I love to give inspired gifts, I love the reminder of God's love for us in sending his only son into a corrupt world that would despise and ultimately murder him.... but at Christmas it's all about a baby, and hope :) Random outburst, eh?

As promised....

....Pictures of Micah "Ladies Man" Ezell with other babies from our Sunday School class~

Pumpkin Patch

Micah has had 2 pumpkin patch trips in his short life already.... here are some pics from the first trip :)

Micah with his cousins (his outfit was a little big resulting in a tiny looking head :)


Micah and Evan size each other up

Grandma holds on to all three kids.... NOT easy!

It's easy to mess with a 3 month old

I love this one :)

3 Months

I can't believe it, but my little boy is 3 months old today! At the ripe old age of 3 months, Micah is drooling (ALOT), enjoys chewing on just about everything, has started doing crunches, vocalizes all the time, is really close to truly figuring out that his hands are attached and he has control over them :), and loves to watch other babies... particularly older ones that can move around on their own. He is such a joy, even when he turns into his alter ego... Grumpy McFussButt :P We thank God each day for the gift of Micah... he truly is a miracle :)

Avid Blog Stalker

I got a comment on yesterday's post that made me smile.... I have a confessed blog stalker! I LOVE that :) Being a fan of blog stalking myself, it's fun to have others that admit to it unabashedly. I have actually made friends by blog stalking them. Two girls from my church have fantastic blogs that I followed links to one day and I got hooked. After who knows how long of reading their daily musings, I was seated by them at a wedding and it was like we were old friends... so fun! I am currently blog stalking a friend of a friend with toddler aged twins that make for some very fun entries :) Well, I'm stalking her among a few others ;-)

Twice is Nice

I went to the So You Think You Can Dance tour for the second time this weekend and I have to say.... loved it!! So much better than last year! You could tell that, this year, everybody liked each other and it made it that much more fun to watch :)

Now.... side note~ What are parents thinking these days??? One of the prominent demographics at the show was pre-teen hoochies. The arena was crawling with 10-12 yr old girls in very grown up clothing and inappropriate makeup. One girl who we estimated at around 11-yrs old (the poor thing didn't have a curve anywhere on her entire body) was in 5 inch platform stilettos and skinny jeans with very mature makeup and accessories. OK, the itty bitty chica is not old enough to have a job, which means her parents BOUGHT her those ridiculous shoes....hello! What were they thinking??? The sexualization of these young girls was horrifying and led Nate and I to the decision that we want to have just boys.... of course we'll have to keep blinders on them to shield them from this new breed of sixth grade girl... anyhoo, exit soapbox :)

Micah Slept Through the Night.....

......and I watched! Yup, he officially did it the first time on Tuesday night!! We were in San Antonio for Evan's birthday and he just did it... wham, 9 hours!! So you must be thinking... wow, what a great night's sleep for you! NOPE!! I woke up at 1:30 am and watched him sleep... I couldn't fall back asleep, I'm too used to waking up during the night! I watched for three hours before he woke up to eat (my mom joined me for the second half of the watch party) I also checked periodically that he was still breathing :P He has repeated his feat of sleeping prowess every night since with the exception of two... not too shabby :)

In Case You Didn't Know....

I believe that the word has gotten around about the new Cypress premium outlets... I know that I had certainly heard about them :) Well, my mom, Micah and I went last Friday and I found out that there are a few things about the outlets nobody had told me yet...

1) The sign guy for the nearby CVS has a great sense of humor. You know the electronic sign boards out in front of CVS's? Amidst the rotating sale prices, two phrases caught my eye... "Open 24 hours (in a row!)" and "Yes, we DO know where the outlet mall is." Apparently they have been asked before :)

2) The stores are outside, but they are all gathered together with pedestrian only areas between them, thus removing the many chances to get run over that you get at a regular outlet mall, a la San Marcos.

3) The best thing? They have an Ann Taylor Loft outlet!! Sure, they have the Ann Taylor outlet like everyone else, but they are the first place I've EVER seen a Loft outlet. And.... it's huge!! Ah, life is good :)

He Said, She Said

The Vice Presidential debate was yesterday and frankly, I'm tired. I'm tired of an obviously biased media focusing entirely on Republican flaws and ignoring the possibility that Obama might not be the shining light that they portray him as. I am sick and tired of the fact that after the debate, the only discussion is about if you think Palin did well or not without any mention of the other candidate. Was I the only one who watched it and noticed that Biden was also there?

I have to say though, the main thing that irked me was that the moderator never hit on the main question that I wanted to hear Palin answer. I was holding my breath to hear her ask it, but it never happened. "Governor Palin, what were you thinking when you named your children Track, Trig, Bristol, Willow, and Piper? You have 90 seconds to respond" :)

WNTW

Any What Not to Wear fans out there?? I caught an episode yesterday wherein Nick was cutting someone's hair and made a joke about how much she owed him for it. This reminded me of something I have wondered from time to time.... how much would it cost for someone not in need of a fashion overhaul to get an Arrojo haircut. Well, lucky for me, his salon posts their rates online :) For Nick to cut your hair, it will set you back a whopping 500 smackaroos!! Now, should you require highlights, that'll add at least 163 bucks to your day. Anybody else wondering where on earth they find multiple peeps willing to pay this much for a hairdo??

P.S.- should your blowdry take more than 10 minutes, you will have to add another 25 bucks... add 15 more if they have to use the flat iron on you... yikes!!

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Ok, so I love Christmas, but this post has nothing to do with Christmas :) This post is about the weather. That's right, the universal polite topic of conversation. As Jane Austen wrote it, "If you cannot think of anything appropriate to say, you will please restrict your remarks to the weather."

Anyhoo, it's that time of year in Houston..... it's cool and sunny and GORGEOUS!! Sure, we have a hot summer, but this is the time of year that we begin to realize that people who live in the north are total mental cases. They are preparing for icy, biting winters and we are basking in sunny, 60 degree mornings. Ahhhhhh, feels good!! Micah and I were actually able to take our walk outside today without him sweating off 5 of his 11 pounds :) This had the added bonus of not having to put him in his car seat which, coincidentally, he hates. You know how "all babies LOVE their seats and will fall right to sleep in them"?? Not so much ALL babies :P Anyhoo, we are officially turning the corner into nice weather, and I am pumped!